Zoom, zoom, zoom!

Balloonfish - Diodon holocanthus

On Wednesday, before we went out snorkeling again, the group was given a tour of the Key Marine Lab (KML) facilities. In one part is an old "touch pool" still there from when the whole site used to be a part of Sea World. We were still aloud to touch the creatures in the pool, with cautious of course. My favorite is the little balloonfish. The KML keeps two of the critters, one just lazily swims during the day and sort of drifts at night. The other, however, zooms around the square pool like a racecar driver. At night it still puts around, but was bumbing into walls and other critters in the pool...like a big sea urchin. Danielle and I watched the balloonfish swim around, gain speed, and then ram into the urchin like it wanted to knock it off the wall. That obviously didn't work, the poor thing. The balloonfish would also hit the walls looking like it was picking the algae off the walls. Out of all the fish we encountered this week, those two little balloonfish in the pool were my favorite. Not just because I could touch thme and see them more closely, but because I could watch them longer and see their differing personalities.